by Lydia Pax
Wild Rider
Bad Boy Bikers, Volume 2
Lydia Pax
Published by Princeps Publishing, 2016.
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
WILD RIDER
First edition. June 23, 2016.
Copyright © 2016 Lydia Pax.
Written by Lydia Pax.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Wild Rider
Also available from Lydia Pax: | The Affairs of the Arena series
The Bad Boy Bikers Series
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
Thank you!
But wait—there's more!
Heart of the Gladiator | Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Epilogue
Thank you!
Bibliography
Further Reading: Hard Rider
About the Author
Wild Rider
Get in touch!
Lydia Pax Website
Lydia Pax on Facebook
Lydia Pax on Twitter
Lydia Pax on Goodreads
Also available from Lydia Pax:
The Affairs of the Arena series
Heart of the Gladiator
Love of the Gladiator
Desire of the Gladiator
The Bad Boy Bikers Series
Hard Rider
Want to get the latest new releases from me and offers for free Advance Review Copies before anyone else? Sign up for my new release newsletter!
Everything about their closeness was furious and hot. His hands were on top of hers, pushing her against the wall, trapping her as he kissed her hard. They were all alone, finally; together in a room that was only for them. He had promised to break every piece of furniture in the place—and to do it by having his way with her needy young body through every chair, every table, every desk inside.
She wasn't trapped, not really. Against all reason, all logic, against her own belief—she wanted to be there. Wanted to be held under his massive strength. The tight, hulking musculature of his, wrapped in ink and scars, so amazingly crafted. Every part of him was like a tribute to her erogenous zones, turning her on more than she could stand. Their kiss was driving her wild—driving her mad, making her insane with lust for him.
Lust...and more than lust.
It was like it just wasn't enough of a dream that he was an alpha male badass biker, capable of destroying any other man who ever tried to get in his way. It wasn't enough that he was built like a god, his body a stack of beautifully chiseled muscles. And it wasn't enough that his skin was tailored with such beautiful ink, shapes and designs making his body into a piece of erotic masculine art.
No, all that wasn't enough, apparently, to make him so ungodly hot. He had to kidnap her too. He had to take her and force her to be his old lady—to become her property. Every twisted, secret button she had was pressed by him, and he knew it—he was that kind of stud.
And if that wasn't enough, she enjoyed the hell out of it. How could she not, with his hands running up her thighs, his lips so hot that she was burning up inside, his brilliant erection so amazingly hard as it pushed up against her body?
It wasn't like it would last anyway. They had too many people after their blood to live for long. Their deaths were coming, and their romance was doomed to be short-lived. She might as well enjoy the wild ride while it lasted...
Chapter 1
More than anything else in the world, Beretta wanted a plan to follow.
Most of the time, the world didn't provide one. So, he had to make them himself. He was obsessive in this—planning, organizing, strategizing. Every eventuality that he could plan against meant one more opportunity that no one would get close to him ever again—and so, no one who mattered to him would ever die again, because there would be no one close enough to him to matter.
The alley he looked down was dark and long, lit only by one dim streetlight and the small bulbs above the exits of the bars and stores that emptied out into the narrow, winding space. Dumpsters, dented and covered with filth, were posted at odd angles to make it impossible for cars to drive through. There had been automobile accidents in the past and the owners tired of cleaning up after them.
The air was cool; it was early spring and it was one of those fluctuating nights where you could overheat if you were around too many people, but caught out by yourself you might catch a chill.
Two large men, ink running heavy across their bald skulls and thick necks, stood outside a door leading down to an underground brothel. They carried guns in holsters around their chests and exchanged small talk that Beretta—far down on the other side of the alley and holding a pair of binoculars—couldn't hear.
Just in front of the alley was a long line of heavy motorcycles, all of them Harleys. The bikes belonged to the Copperheads—the rival gang to the Wrecking Crew in Stockland. It was the Copperheads who controlled the city of Stockland where the Wrecking Crew had only recently arrived and now inside of which they aimed to set themselves up. Two more big bruisers stood around the bikes, looking scary and chasing off any pedestrians who got too close. They carried guns too.
Beretta took one look down the alley, toward the brothel, and shook his head.
“Your girl said Rattler was in there?” he asked Locke.
Locke sat next to him in the shadows, bouncing a racquetball up and down a brick wall. One of the newest patch members in the Wrecking Crew, Locke didn’t have enough ink on him to fill a shot glass. The MC life was relatively new to him compared to Beretta, but that didn't make him any less of a scoundrel.
“She said he came here every Friday, like clockwork. Always asks for the same girls. Always gets the same treatment.”
“You trust her?”
“I trust every girl I'm with,” said Locke. “That's why I get so many of them. You ought to try it sometime.”
Beretta ignored him. He didn't need advice on woman from Locke. Didn't need it from anybody, really. He abstained from sex, from women altogether, on purpose. Much as it pained him, it was for the good of others. When he and women mixed, there was only trouble in the product.
“I think we ought to hit him,” said Beretta. “Tonight. Now.”
Rattler was the head of the Copperhead MC. The Wrecking Crew was fighting him for every inch of territory. Taking out Rattler would be akin to a deathblow to the Copperheads.
“Now?” said Locke. “It's just the two of us.”
“So?”
“So?” Locke took the binoculars from him. “So, I'm seeing two guys right outside the place. Another two by their bikes, and probably another two inside with him. The Myers Brothers, probably. That's seven to our two.”
“So? I thought you weren't a pussy.”
“I'm not, but Christ, Beretta. There's being a pussy and then there's being fucking smart. We'll get another shot at him.”
“We've been tailing this Copperhead fuck for a month and this is the first shot we've had. Who's to say we'll get another? Who's to say he doesn't sniff us out, find out people know he's coming here, and hole up when he wants his whores like he holes up for everything else?”
“We should call Ace, at least,” said Locke, realizing he was losing the argument. “It's his call. He's Prez.”
It was Ace's plan to simply do reconnaissance, learn the lay of the land. But Beretta's plan was and had been all along to take Stockland for the Wrecking Crew. This was meant to be their territory, and he would make it so. He had to; it was his shot at redemption.
Other people's plans rarely, if ever, fit into Beretta's own.
“I'm fucking Sergeant-at-Arms, and I'm telling you, this is a move we have to make. We can't afford to hesitate like this.”
Locke stuck his hands in his pockets, looking up the street and then down again.
“Anything goes wrong,” said Beretta, “I'll take the fall. Don't worry about it.”
“I'm not worried about it going wrong. I'm worried about fucking dying, you piece of shit.” Locke shook his head. “But fine, come on. Let's go. Can't say I never did nothing for you, you crazy fuck.”
They split up, Locke taking a long flank to one side in the shadows to cover his approach, while Beretta walked at the two Copperheads next to the Harleys head-on.
Beretta was a large man, wearing dark jeans and a short t-shirt. Over the past several months, his hair had grown long, sweeping down to near his shoulders, thick and untameable like the rest of him. A long scar jagged down the left side of his face. He wore his leather vest with its colors on his back, identifying him clearly as a biker and a member of an outlaw motorcycle club. If a normal man saw him coming at him in the dark, he'd run for his life.
But the bikers that saw him coming were hardened from years of dealing and violence. When they saw him approach, they grouped up and held up their hands.
“Get the fuck out of here,” one said. “This is a private area.”
“Private?” said Beretta. “It's a parking lot.”
One opened his mouth, ready to argue with him a little more, and that was when Locke slipped his knife up inside his ribs. The man fell to the ground, twitching. Beretta, taking advantage of the distraction, slipped his own knife into the other man's chest and dropped him.
First blood of war, thought Beretta.
Quiet, quick, by surprise. It never feels as momentous as it ought to. They moved the bodies into the shadows quickly.
“Take out the bikes?” Locke whispered.
Beretta took a look down the alley and then shook his head. There was no time. Rattler was approaching, flanked by two men in front and behind. Fire escapes stuck out wide, trash cans littered across the pavement, and crates and boxes half-full with junk were stacked five-high in some places. As such, they could barely fit shoulder-to-shoulder.
“Guns,” said Beretta. “No more knives.”
Locke nodded and pulled out his pistol. Quickly they moved to cover, slipping behind a pair of dumpsters on either side of the alley's opening.
The footsteps approached, thump-by-thump, shuffling occasionally. The sounds were painfully apparent to Beretta, his adrenaline high, every sense heightened.
Then, just as they were about to step out into the open, the steps stopped.
“Wait,” said Rattler. “You smell that?”
“Smell what, boss?”
“That's blood.”
A man stumbled forward past the opening, pushed there by Rattler. Beretta waited, knowing it was a trick, a feint—but Locke opened fire.
The man was lit up across his side and dead before he hit the ground. Beretta swore and rushed out from behind cover, hugging the wall close to the alley.
“Identify yourselves!” Rattler roared. “Who the fuck are you to come at me?”
Rattler was thin, wiry. Too much meth to keep him healthy, not enough to kill him. That was Rattler in a nutshell. His lips were covered in burn marks from hitting the pipe too hard, his teeth falling out where they weren’t already cracked and twisted, like some bridge-squatting troll. His body was hairless; long scars trafficked across his scalp.
He had a habit of running a knife over the top of his skull. He did it now, powered by nerves and the tension of the situation. Sometimes the blade dug in too deep, cut too long, his movements fueled by speed and the nerve-endings up there all killed long ago.
“Wrecking Crew,” Beretta called back. “And we'll put you in the goddamn ground.”
He spun out from cover and fired down the alley—but Rattler was waiting for him, now. Quick bastard—fast! He'd already climbed up onto the fire escape, firing down at Beretta from above. Sparks flew across the alley as their bullets cracked against stone and the metal of a lamp post.
Two bullets ripped quick across the edge of his hip, and he staggered back into cover. Pain shot through his body, hot and hard. The wounds were shallow but burned like hell. Beretta’s body was made for all sorts of things, but fighting in particular was when he was in his element.
He was built for it—all dense tissue and heavy bones. In him was a distant attitude to pain, letting it come like hot water from a faucet. He liked to dive his hands in and out, to see how close he could get to being scalded. And the longer he stuck himself in it, the less he felt.
“Think you can come into my territory, do you, you fucking bitches? This is my town.” Rattler’s voice was strangely high-pitched, but that only made him more menacing. “My fucking town, and you’re gonna burn in it. There’s not gonna be enough left of you to fit in a fucking grocery bag!”
Locke now was coming—finally out from behind the dumpster.
“Son of a bitch,” he said. “I got him.”
“No,” said Beretta. “Wait—!”
Locke heard him, but a moment too late. The second he stepped into the open, gunfire lit up on him. He dove down, landing against Beretta. His shoulder was shot through, right in the meat.
Beretta looked around. With both of them shot, they needed to retreat, and quick.
But that didn't mean they couldn't leave a little souvenir for Rattler before they left. He knew which one was Rattler's bike—it was custom-made to look as though it had been made from bones. The handlebars were longhorn horns; the exhaust was a long femur, the front fender a series of skulls grafted together
.
Gathering up Locke's bloody form on one shoulder, he opened fire on the bike, destroying it as best he could—taking out the tires, the gas tank, the engine. The bullets tore the metal apart, busting through the chrome, breaking delicate machinery apart, sending oil and gas leaking everywhere.
With that done, it was time for a retreat. He and his outlaw brother needed medical treatment.
He'd taken a shot at the kingpin of the town and he'd missed. It was a play he'd come to regret, and sooner rather than later. Their bikes were stashed down the street, and they kicked them over, starting off into the night.
“I’d call that a bust,” said Locke. His voice was already weak.
“Yes,” said Beretta. “Yes it was.”
Chapter 2
Helen leaned over the nurse station, whistling softly to rouse her supervisor.
“Georgetta, I’m taking a break, all right?”
The older woman stirred, shaking herself. She was black and wore big glasses that made her eyes look like that of an owl or a frog. When she took the glasses off to rub herself awake, she was actually quite lovely, her face small and caring like a young grandmother's.
Georgetta said she kept the glasses on at work to keep the patients from flirting with her; she wanted a new lover like she wanted a lump in her neck.
Helen could sympathize. All she had ever gotten from love was broken hearts and a head full of bad thoughts.
“What’s that now? A break?” Georgetta shook her head. “I need some coffee, damn. Put some together on your way out, huh?” She glanced at the clock, yawning deeply. “Be back in twenty for Mister Robbins in 215. He’ll need his IV switched out again.”
Helen nodded and patted the desk, yawning herself as she slipped down the hall. Of all the afflictions passed around these walls, there was nothing as contagious as the yawn.
As she walked, she tied up the thick mass of her dirty blond hair into a pony tail. Being at work, her form was covered in scrubs, which always made her feel more average than usual—which was pretty darned average. Everything about her felt this way—her height, her weight, her face. Men told her different—that they liked her curves, that her lips were lovely, and so on—but then, you couldn't really trust a man about that sort of thing.
